by Michael Patrick

Created on: July 06, 2008

Yes, fathers should be in the running for equal custody. In my own marriage my wife and I have twins and I'm an equal partner and influence on their well being. We both work and share everything including cooking, cleaning, and childrearing. My wife does more cooking and I do more homework. She makes sure the kids have clothes and I teach them how to use tools. We both teach manners and etiquette and hug them and tell them we love them.

Fathers should be in the race not just for equal custody but for sole custody. In the past half-century, divorces have skyrocketed and caught public attention in films such as "The War of the Roses" and "Kramer vs. Kramer." As the nation's courts become more involved in determining which of the parents should have custody of the children and which should be relegated to visiting rights, society and economics have evolved to confuse the issue with two working parents instead of the old standby of a mother who stayed home to tend to the household and the kids while dad worked to support the family.

That particular centuries-old paradigm led courts to believe, with considerable reason, that mothers had more experience, more contact, more intimacy and understanding of the children and should therefore be granted custody while the departing father should continue to support the family with money.

It's not like that today. For better or worse, both parents have to work just to keep up and certainly to get ahead. The division of financial responsibilities is vexing enough but which of the parents is the better, more reliable and sensitive childrearer is the hard question.

The knee-jerk idea that a woman is a more loving and responsible parent has been proved wrong by nutty but high-profile cases like Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. Who woulda thunk that Federline would prevail? But, after all the media exposure, rightfully so.

The problem, of course, is what is best for the child(ren). Courts are forced to make judgments about this too often and they are a last resort in highly charged emotional battles in an inherently flawed legal system. There's not a judge out there who wants to rule in a custody battle. Spouses fling insults and accusations at each other through their attorneys who have no stake in which side is better able to raise a child.

With divorce rates in the fifty-percentile, it is too often up to an overworked judge to sort out the truth and decide which parent is the best skilled, most reliable, attentive and worthy of custody. With more women in the workplace sharing equal responsibility for maintenance of the household in which the children live, that automatic reflex to judge a mother better qualified to raise children has come into question. It was never a slam-dunk anyway, but the traditional belief that any woman who gave birth was more devoted to the child than a working father has finally been proved fatuous if not felonious.

I'm not militant or misogynistic. My mother was a loving stay-at-home mom who raised three children in the frequent absence of my Navy father who lovingly devoted himself to the care and feeding of his family. They were married for 60 years before Mom died. My father is 97 and still kicking or at least flinching. But times changed and I adjusted. I made sure I was a more hands-on parent than my father. There is value in that.

My marriage is unlikely to end in divorce, but if it did happen, a court would be hard pressed to determine which of us should have custody.

Learn more about this author, Michael Patrick.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.